Villagers in northern Laos have been on the move for generations. Recent changes, however, in the location of their village and their daily mobility patterns differ from what they have experienced before; the government’s resettlement programme has changed their livelihoods and made them more socially and economically vulnerable. The ethnic groups we studied have decided to use mobility to resist state control and seek livelihood security for themselves. By using the concept of motility, this article analyses how this household and community choices have a gender-differentiated impact. The mobility patterns of men and women have changed. While men attend to long-term investments, women are forced to make ends meet on a day-to-day basis. Men visit the market and public places more frequently, while women spend more time looking for non-timber forest products and working as hired labour. Although women now support the family and their mobility has increased, their say in the household seems to be on the decline, resulting in weakening women’s motility.

Baird, Ian G., Bruce P. Shoemaker, and Kanokwan Manorom. 2015. “The People and Their River, the World Bank and Its Dam: Revisiting the Xe Bang Fai River in Laos.” Development and Change 46 (5): 1080–1105.

Authors: Ian G. Baird, Bruce P. Shoemaker, Kanokwan Manorom

Abstract:

Sustained criticism in the 1980s and 1990s resulted in a decline of World Bank funding for large hydropower dams. The Bank subsequently participated in the World Commission on Dams process, which set higher global standards for hydropower dams. In 2005, the World Bank agreed to support the Nam Theun 2 Hydropower Project (NT2) in Laos, and in 2010 NT2 began diverting water from the Theun River into the Xe Bang Fai River. The World Bank has promoted NT2 as a successful model of poverty alleviation, justifying support for other large dams. Assessing actual impacts and associated mitigation and compensation is thus timely. This article presents qualitative field research from early 2014 about the downstream impacts of NT2 in the Xe Bang Fai River basin and a description and analysis of efforts to compensate for losses. The authors consider the situation with the assistance of baseline data collected in 2001, before project approval. Findings suggest that NT2 has had a significant negative impact, including on the livelihoods of large numbers of people dependent on the river's resources. Many of those impacted view compensation and mitigation efforts as having failed to adequately address their losses. Further independent investigation and documentation are needed.

The development of roads is a major focus of development projects in the Mekong Sub-Region. This empirical study was conducted in Savannakhet, Lao PDR, to examine the benefits of road development, its impact on livelihoods, and the link between livelihoods and mobility through the concept of sense of place. The results showed that road development affected people's livelihoods, which, in turn, affected their sense of place and mobility. Analysing sense of place allows us to understand how road development can change gender norms and why more women migrate than men.

This engaging and vivid book investigates the course of the HIV epidemic in seven countries of South East Asia: Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Vietnam and China’s Yunnan Province. Emphasising the impact of the cultural and political landscapes of these countries on the progress of the disease, the book is the product of both working and travelling in the area. Not merely a commentary on obfuscating government statistics, the author draws upon his encounters with people dealing with the effects of the epidemic and opponents of the regimes of the countries he describes. The epidemic is seen as being vitally linked to the general condition of human rights in the societies.

In the first part of the book the author travels to each country in turn chronicling the different approaches adopted to the epidemic. The second part covers issues involving specific groups at risk - among other topics, women and contraception, prostitution and the traffic in women, HIV and the US military, the Heroin trade, gay sex workers, prisoners, and the work of local activists. The third part of the book looks at policy and the general effect of culture on public health care, stressing the need for local empowerment of populations, and in particular women, to effect social changes that would go hand in hand with improvements in the handling of the HIV epidemic. Both passionate and well-informed, this book is a labour of love that discusses the HIV epidemic while giving an intimate, and ultimately celebratory account of South East Asia and asserting the real possiblity for affirmative action. (Amazon)

In this article, I aim to examine the ways in which gender concerns have been 'mainstreamed' into government activities. I focus on three countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region: Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. While gender mainstreaming policies are in place at the national level in these countries, the 'evaporation' (Longwe 1995) of such policies at the lower levels has been a problem. The article concentrates on challenges of implementation which exist at provincial/commune and department levels. Drawing on the experience of middle and low-level government officers, I argue here that policy evaporation occurs partly because of lack of political commitment to gender mainstreaming at different levels. Another problem is that the concept of gender mainstreaming itself remains vague, and is thus difficult to translate into action.

Southeast Asian refugee women suffered extremely traumatic experiences at the hands of the Khmer Rouge, during their escapes from Cambodia and Laos, and in refugee camps. I describe these experiences as the background for interventions to promote and reestablish mental health in these women. A reported study of women who were experiencing psychosomatic blindness as a result of the trauma they had undergone is presented as an example. Therapeutic strategies are suggested.

The wars in Southeast Asia displaced thousands of families from Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The upheavals led to a number of waves of immigration to the United States. Current research supports hypotheses of post-traumatic stress disorder diagnoses in refugees from the wars in Vietnam but omits pertinent cultural factors. This phenomenological study of 19 women from Southeast Asia examines the meanings of their refugee experiences. Open-ended interviews with these women reveal themes of survival, despair, and isolation. Health care providers may notice cultural bereavement as opposed to post-traumatic stress disorder, reflecting a psychological resilience not extensively explored previously. Developing empathetic interactions and including important ethnic identity factors in caring for refugee women appear essential in providing appropriate health care.